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Franklin Co-op Creamery Building

Posted January10,2014

Seward Co-op has started construction on our new offices on the second floor of the Creamery building at the corner of 26th and Franklin avenues. Located across the street from Wells Fargo bank, it was previously occupied by Desiring God Ministries. The building was built in 1920 by a multi-stakeholder co-op that processed and home delivered milk and other dairy products to its owners.

In addition to gaining much needed office space, the co-op also will be returning the building to its original use as a food production facility. We are initiating plans to expand our bakery and meat production. The space may include a small retail café. We have hired Redesign to help with project management and Watson Forsberg as our general contractor. Currently, we are in the process of hiring an architect and doing a full environmental review of the property. We hope to have our offices built by later this spring and the food production facility completed by the fall. Returning the space to food production will enhance the support we give to area farmers/producers through our purchases of ingredients. At the same time it will invoke the history of those cooperators who constructed the building in 1920.

We will soon offer co-op owners the opportunity to invest in these exciting projects. All of the expansions Seward Co-op has done over the past three decades have been made possible because owners invested in the co-op. We anticipate that we, as owners, will need to invest up to $2.5 million in loans or C stock in order to realize these two projects. Look for a mailing in the coming weeks with information about investing in the growth of our co-op.